I'm neither a policy expert nor a trained diplomat and I don't claim to hold all the answers.
On the one hand, Hamas must in fact be forced to stand down. Their rocket attacks and other forms of aggression against Israel are both woefully ineffective in a military sense and massively counterproductive in a local political sense. This will be difficult as Hamas has demonstrated it's politically fractured and contains what are essentially rogue elements. Even if the main body of Hamas comes to the table, the entirety of it might not. For that reason, Israel must allow for some flexibility in any ceasefire rather than immediately declaring them void at any provocation, as it has been doing.
The current tactic of Israel forcibly disarming Hamas is enormously counterproductive for Israeli PR and for international relations. The best way of disarming Hamas is likely to be certain forms of security assurances by the international community and the deployment of international forces of a varied background (i.e., preferably including other Arab or Muslim nations, akin to the 1991 Gulf War Coalition) into Gaza to effect a disarmament. The siege of Gaza must be lifted, in a controlled fashion, and Gaza returned to some state of political normalcy, in so far as such a thing exists at all in the Palestinian territories. Elections in Gaza could likely be extracted as a concession. Hamas must at any rate recognize Israel's right to exist as a gesture of good faith in negotiations.
Both sides must be forced back to the negotiation table on the two-state solution to which they have repeatedly nominally asserted their intent of pursuit. Other than permitting international forces to handle a security concern clearly beyond its capabilities to reasonably control and to provide humanitarian aid, and having a less itchy trigger finger, nothing of note has been demanded of Israel so far in these suggestions.
It is clear that Israeli ambitions on Gaza and the West Bank must be repudiated. Likewise, continued Israeli colonization through settlements must end. These must be non-negotiable. These are both ultranationalist objectives and have no place in a process whose objective is a lasting peaceful solution. If Israel refuses to comply, economic and political pressure should be applied to them in the form of sanctions and the withdrawal of aid and assistance for as long as is required to achieve this effect.
Once both sides are at the table, a concrete roadmap to the two-state solution must be established. If possible, exclaves should be minimized through the destruction of settlements and relocation of settlers; if not, territory swaps should be made. Israel cannot reasonably insist on a Palestinian state that has no self-defense capability and the bulk of whose territory is controlled by Israeli forces. That is not acceptable, as it is the status quo. The long-term involvement of international forces in Palestinian territory will likely be a requirement to assuage the security concerns of both parties.
The United States and its European partners must be ready to apply considerable pressure to both sides to reach this outcome. The biggest stumbling block to this is likely to be the recalcitrance of the United States. Unconditional US support for Israel is counterproductive an active impediment to the process. The US has to be a more impartial actor to achieve the result it wants.
I think you all missed the bit where Symph said this.
Honestly every time somebody claims that symph doesn't unironically buy into the protocols of the elders of zion with jews swapped out with Israel i will just repost this.
his mercenary little nation
He mentioned that Israel acts like a mercenary state
They didn't miss it, hoss, you're just literally incapable of detecting sarcasm in text format, which you probably should have discerned from "Patron Saint George" and "Comrade Lenin" in the next line (which you ever so curiously omitted), something which literally every other poster in this thread picked up on except you because nobody took it seriously. You have awful reading comprehension skills and are apparently seemingly totally unable to place remarks in context to other nearby remarks. Please, do reply to this stating you know better than me what my intent was, how absolutely sure you are that everything I have posted in this discussion was stated in the latest and greatest traditions of the New Sincerity, and how I secretly have a Waffen SS uniform in my closet. (And a picture of stalin006 on my dresser.)
e: No, really, let me point out how bad you are at reading: I literally told Thlayli I hated him and even he did not take that remark as sincerely as you have been because it was that obviously hyperbole. You are fundamentally bad at reading and apparently completely incapable of reprocessing information in a new light, i.e., everything I have said since the end of my "dialogue" with him. You are broken. Feel bad.
given that from memory you continue to support the us actions in afghanistan.
I've opposed the deployment of massed forces and a permanent conventional presence, i.e., the surge into Tora Bora, for about a decade now. It should have remained a special forces operation dedicated to eliminating Al Qaeda personnel with, at most, assistance to the Northern Coalition. Nation-building doesn't work. Try again.